1. Technical Field
This invention relates to the field of international dialing services and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for disabling an automatic international redial service for an international call, providing status of the automatic international redial service, permitting the subscriber to change service parameters and, at the end of a redial period, offering a further opportunity for automatic international redial service.
2. Description of the Related Arts
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/919,000, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,038,307 filed concurrently herewith describes an international redial system in which the cause of an international call failure is identified according to International Telecommunications Union (I.T.U.) standards. When an international call is placed, modem foreign networks return data representative of one of several reasons for a failure to complete an international call. According to the ITU-T recommendations, cause failure data may represent one of up to 127 individual causes for the failure of an international call, when the call does not go through. For example, cause value code number 17 relates to "user busy," that is, the called party is presently on their line and the line is busy for that reason. If there is a network busy problem, then a cause value code 42 is returned representing "switching equipment congestion." If the caller dials an invalid number, a cause code value of 28 is returned for "invalid number format."
Different countries have chosen to implement ITU-T recommendations in different ways. For example, the United Kingdom uses the ISUP (the Integrated Services Digital Network User Part) signaling system to indicate a cause failure reason as a "cause" value number. Other countries such as France use the TUP (Telephone User Part) signaling system in which reasons for call failures are indicated by the generation of an appropriate "signal code." Still other countries use the R2 (Register Signaling 2) signaling system in which "B-signal" codes represent reasons for call failures. All of these may be translated into an indicative signal code. Hereinafter, any one or any other data indicative of a reason for the failure of an international call shall be referred to herein as "unsuccessful call reason information."
It is also described in the '000 application that an international service is presently available from AT&T known as AT&T International Redial (AIR) service. AT&T long distance customers may presubscribe to AIR service. When a subscriber is unsuccessful in completing an international call, AT&T can check to be sure the subscriber has presubscribed and then prompt the subscriber: "If you would like to use AT&T International Redial service, please press *234." If the caller presses *234, the redial service automatically attempts to redial the call, for example, up to ten times in a half hour period. Of course, the system parameters for number of calls and period between call attempts may vary from system to system. The number of redial attempts (for example; ten) times the redial interval (for example, every three minutes) will be defined herein as the automatic redial period (for example, thirty minutes). While the caller is waiting for their international call to go through, the caller may occupy themselves with other tasks. With AIR service, the caller does not have to continuously have to place the call until the call goes through, the network does, and calls the caller back when the call is answered by the called party.
Once the subscriber has initiated the service, the subscriber may hang up and await a call from an adjunct indicating the called party has been reached and the international call may be completed. During the time period the AIR service is activated but the subscriber has not been rung back due to reaching the called party, the caller may not think anything is happening in regard to his request, may be suddenly required to attend to other business and wish to disconnect the service or otherwise wish to change the status of the AIR service request (for example, to terminate the request) or wish to receive an indication from the network as to the present status of the international redial service. Also, once the automatic redial period is over, the subscriber may wish to be advised of such status and offered an opportunity to continue AIR service.
Consequently, it is an object of the present invention to increase the likelihood of realizing revenues from a caller's placing an international call. It is a further object to assist the user in making an international call by making an international call as caller friendly and as automatic for the caller as possible. It is a further object to permit the caller to terminate service once the subscriber has initiated the service. It is a still further object to provide a service status announcement upon request or automatically at the end of a redial period. It is a still further object to offer another AIR redial period immediately at the conclusion of an automatic redial period.